By Patrick Seale
First Published 2010-06-14
Courtesy Of "Middle-East-Online"
U.S. President Barack Obama seems to be piling up blunders across a whole spectrum of foreign policy issues, gravely tarnishing the reputation in the outside world which he enjoyed when he came to office in January 2009.
His latest moves and pronouncements on subjects as various as Iran’s nuclear activities and its internal politics, Turkey’s regional diplomacy, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the war in Afghanistan strongly suggest that he is yielding to populist pressures and special interest groups at variance with his own convictions.
The most dangerous of these blunders may well prove to be his policy towards Iran. Instead of welcoming -- as an important first step towards a wider negotiation -- the fuel swap agreement which Turkey and Brazil reached with Tehran on 17 May, Washington dismissed the deal as a time-wasting ploy and proceeded to secure Security Council backing for further sanctions against Iran.
It is hardly surprising that Iran has reacted with defiance. Obama’s early ambition of ending three decades of U.S-Iranian hostility has turned to dust.
Worse still, Obama and his Secretary of State Hilary Clinton are now openly interfering in internal Iranian politics -- something they wisely refrained from doing at the time of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s contested re-election a year ago. Last week Obama urged the world to support the Iranian people in their fight for ‘freedom’, while Clinton accused the Iranian regime of repressing its people, manipulating elections, exporting terrorism and pursuing nuclear weapons. “This adds up,’” she said, “to a very dangerous combination.”
To Iranians, the additional sanctions and the belligerent statements can mean only one thing: As was the case with Iraq in 2003, the United States is being pushed by Israel and its American supporters into a military confrontation with the Islamic Republic.
The Times of London -- once a serious newspaper but now a frequent peddler of disinformation on the Middle East -- reported on 12 June that Saudi Arabia, with the approval of the U.S. State Department, had agreed to allow Israel the use of a corridor in its airspace for a bombing run on Iran. The malicious aim of reports such as this is to persuade opinion that a leading Arab state is prepared to join with Israel against Iran, and thus prepare the ground for war. This is inflammatory nonsense.
In the wake of Israel’s assault on 31 May on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla, which killed nine Turks, tension has arisen between the United States and Turkey -- largely because of ferocious attacks by Jewish groups in the United States on Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his criticism of Israel’s action. American neocons are calling for Turkey to be expelled from NATO, while pro-Israeli newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard have been pouring vitriol on Erdogan and his government, virtually on a daily basis.
Instead of condemning Israel’s attack on the aid convoy, Obama has allowed himself to be turned against Turkey. This is a blunder of the first importance. Turkey is a NATO member with considerable influence not only in the Middle East -- where Erdogan is extremely popular -- but in the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia as well.
Turkey could, in fact, be of great help, not only in defusing the crisis with Iran, but in extricating the United States from the Afghan quagmire. Turkish forces and contractors in Afghanistan -- who have built schools, clinics and roads -- are the only foreigners welcome there. Obama is in danger of throwing away this asset by bowing to pressure from Israel and its hawkish friends.
This comes at an extremely perilous time for the United States and its allies in Afghanistan. No fewer than 27 NATO troops were killed there last week. General Stanley McCrystal’s ‘surge’ has proved a failure. He has been forced to delay for several months his planned assault on the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. Instead of giving full backing to President Hamid Karzai’s call for a ceasefire and immediate negotiations with the Taliban, Obama has listened to those who told him that the Taliban had first to be defeated before negotiations could take place. This is a major mistake for which the United States will pay dearly.
Not the least of Obama’s blunders is his timid handling of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He continues to repeat that he wants a two-state solution but does nothing decisive to bring it about. His envoy, the unfortunate George Mitchell, labours on, but evidently without adequate presidential support.
On the Palestinian side, there will be no peace until the United States starts a dialogue with Hamas and puts all its weight behind the formation of a Palestinian national unity government empowered to negotiate a final peace settlement with Israel.
On the Israeli side, there will be no peace until Obama summons up the political courage to talk tough to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government of right-wing extremists and religious zealots. Their violence and intransigence are condemning Israel to perpetual war. They are also blackening America’s image across the Arab and Muslim world and destroying the great hopes which Obama aroused when he first entered the White House.
Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).
© 2010 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global
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